


A Different Kind of Soulmate

by beckettemory



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen, Ghost Drifting, Grief/Mourning, Immediately Post-Canon, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Soulmates, Sleeping Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-12
Updated: 2013-10-12
Packaged: 2017-12-29 05:59:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1001824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beckettemory/pseuds/beckettemory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set immediately after the movie ends, Raleigh and Mako each break apart from the celebrations to be alone, Raleigh to think, Mako to grieve. While apart, they contemplate their relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Different Kind of Soulmate

Later, after the shouting and hugs and impulse kisses had died down, Raleigh broke apart from the celebrations still underway. Tendo had gone into his personal reserves and brought out three unopened bottles of Jack and that...that was not a good idea for Raleigh right now. There was an ache he couldn't place somewhere in his mind—not a physical ache, though there were plenty of those. He needed some room to think, and the middle of LOCCENT surrounded by swarms of people still celebrating loudly was far from the right place.

He said goodnight, lying and saying he needed to get some sleep, stopped by his quarters to change, and headed to a part of the base he knew would be empty right now—the chapel. Rather than go in (he'd never been remotely religious), he sat against the wall just outside, legs drawn up, hands clasped together and resting on his knees.

 _We did it, Yance_ , he thought, willing his words to reach his dead brother. He waited, half-hoping for some sort of reply. When a quarter hour passed with nothing, he smiled to himself but there was no humour in it.

He thought instead of the girl who had saved his life—and vice versa—time and again, and finally recognised the ache in his consciousness. She wasn't near him. It was like some invisible string tethered them together and could always be felt, and began to pull harder the farther apart they were.

He hadn't felt that since Yancy.

Side effect of the Drift, he knew. All Drift compatible Jaeger pilots experienced it—even the Hansens.

 _Shit_ , he remembered. _Chuck is gone. Herc probably felt it_.

He reminded himself to go check up on Herc later. _Tomorrow._

The line tugged and he turned his attention once more to Mako. She could feel it too.

Their Drift, their shared headspace, was unlike Raleigh and Yancy's. His Drift with Mako was more subtle—wordless and nuanced—compared to his and Yancy's memory and verbal one. Like the difference between Bach and Metallica, he reckoned. He chuckled.

He felt rather than heard Mako question his laugh and responded with the mental equivalent of a noncommittal shrug. He asked where she was. She responded with words, surprising him—she wanted to be alone, but she was okay.

He heard the lie there but decided not to press it. Let her do what she needed to do.

 _I'll be here if you need me_ , he reminded her gently.

Raleigh stood and glanced around until he found a clock. 04:57. Damn. All at once he became aware of how tired he really was, as if waiting for confirmation that he should be tired.

He glanced down at himself, debating whether a shower would be worth delaying sleep. Yes. He could wait ten minutes longer.

In his quarters he gratefully stripped down and went into the bathroom. He studied himself in the mirror. Dark bruises were beginning to form on his chest and shoulders, and a twinge in his side made him decide to swing by med bay first thing in the morning. No good would come of ignoring a cracked rib. Again.

The hot water felt glorious. He stared at the grime washing down the drain. _Gross._ He reached for his shampoo. Empty. _Damn it_. Soap it was.

He towelled off and slumped into his room, the full weight of his fatigue bearing down on him. He dressed haphazardly, pulling on boxers and a t shirt before collapsing into bed and falling asleep immediately.

Some time later—he couldn't tell how long he'd been asleep—he awoke with a start. He glanced around, habitually looking for flashing lights and monsters on video screens, Tendo's voice announcing a name and category. It was dark and quiet, though.

He almost lay back down but at the corner of his mind he felt a tug. Mako. She was just outside his door. He got up, feeling the ache in his limbs, and opened the door.

She wore pyjamas, surprisingly pink and cute despite her mostly stoic exterior. Her hair was dishevelled—bed head, he guessed—and her eyes were red from crying.

As her eyes met Raleigh's they brimmed with tears and she looked down. Without thinking, he found himself wrapping his arms around her tightly. She buried her face in his neck.

He pulled her inside and shut the door, snapping on the light. He gently led her to the edge of the bed and sat, and she curled up half in his lap.

Her mind was mostly incoherent, flashes of Marshall Pentecost ( _Father, Teacher, Daddy_ ) mixed with snippets of Japanese Raleigh simultaneously understood and did not. Memories flooded their headspace— _the day Father rescued me from Onibaba, the first time Father brought me home, my first Christmas with Father, meeting Tamsin, the day Tamsin died and Daddy was a wreck_ —and Raleigh held her tighter. A brief memory, very dim, surprised him—Marshall and Herc carrying very small Mako and Chucks on their shoulders into an amusement park. Her focus shifted, for a moment, to Chuck, and she thought of him fondly and with grief, and with a jolt Raleigh recognised it. Chuck was like a brother to Mako, and he was gone too.

He sniffled and realised he, too, was crying, hot wet tears dripping down his face and into Mako's hair. The grief he felt was neither fully his nor Mako's. They shared this pain, each contributing their own, but it was like piloting Gipsy: though they felt the weight of each other's consciousness as well as the strain of the jaeger, sharing the load lightened what each felt. Like the shared headspace increased the amount they could hold exponentially rather than linearly.

 _Caitlin was right_ , he heard.

 _Share the load_ , he agreed, feeling a pang of embarrassment. He thought he'd been musing to himself.

Mako's mind swung quickly back around to the Marshall and Raleigh saw glimpses of a side of him he'd never considered—coming home (home, a real house not inside a Shatterdome somewhere; it hadn't lasted long) and changing out of his uniform and into sweatpants and t shirts, helping Mako with the English homework she struggled with, cooking dinner and singing along to the radio. A tiny sob escaped Mako and Raleigh stroked her hair.

"Hey," Raleigh murmured, feeling the need to say it out loud for himself as well, "he's a hero. The Breach is closed because of him. Because of both of them."

She nodded. Hesitated.

"I know these things. But I will still miss him. Both of them," she amended.

She looked up and around the room, and Raleigh caught her face with a gentle hand and wiped away some of the moisture from her eyes. She looked down, then yawned hugely, looking like a kitten.

As if that yawn was the reminder they needed, they simultaneously realised how long it had been since they had slept.

Almost before thinking about it they had decided that Mako would stay. Raleigh got up and flicked off the light, then felt his way to the bed. Mako had already lain down and he lay beside her.

After the briefest moment of hesitation, she reached across the space between them and took his hand. He turned on his side to face her, taking her other hand. They slowly fell into place, hands intertwined between them, feet and knees touching, foreheads resting against each other's, as if they had done this a million times. Like it was the easiest thing in the world, and it was.

They belonged together. Raleigh caught himself when he realised how that sounded, but it was true in the most literal sense. They belonged together. When two people understand each other so completely, why would they separate? Without the Drift, one of the ultimate goals in life for most people is to find someone with whom they have such a deep bond, such innate trust in each other that they would be able to share literally everything they had.

That wasn't terribly different from what he and Mako shared. Sure, there was the whole romance thing, but who says your soulmate has to be someone you're in love with?

They loved each other. That was clear. But there had never been that spark, that, "I want to kiss you and go on dates and maybe get married and have babies," love. It was more of an "I trust you implicitly and we share a connection so deep it will be nearly impossible to duplicate with someone other than you so why go to the trouble when we're already right here," love.

Mako agreed quietly, slowly drifting off to sleep but amused by Raleigh's internal ramblings. He moved his head just slightly to press an affectionate kiss to her forehead and she responded with a peck to his nose and a giggle.

 _My soulmate_ , she thought. _Not someone I ever thought I'd find_.

He chuckled. _Me neither_. _At least not this kind of soulmate_.

They pressed their foreheads together again and breathed a sigh simultaneously, and soon fell asleep. It was a fitful sleep, one full of nightmares where the people they loved kept disappearing into thin air, or were just out of reach, or suddenly could not see them. In the dreams, they were alone, except for each other.

Together, they traversed the nightmares, hand in hand, until morning when they woke, still hand in hand, still alive, still together.

**Author's Note:**

> I dunno, this fic seems kind of disjointed. This was my first attempt writing both of them, so that could be it.  
> As always, feedback is appreciated.


End file.
